Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451
By Ray Bradbury

They had the machine. They had two machines, really. One of them slid down into your stomach like a black cobra down an echoing well looking for all the old water and old time gathering there. It drank up the green matter that flowed to the top in a slow boil. Did it drink of the darkness? Did it suck out all the poisons accumulated with the years? It fed in silence with an occasional sound of inner suffocation and blind searching. It had and Eye. The impersonal operator of the machine could, by wearing a special optical helmet, gaze into the soul of the person whom he was pumping out. What did the eye see? He did not say. He saw but did not see what the Eye saw. The entire operation was not unlike the digging of a trench in one's yard. The woman on the bed was no more than a hard stratum of marble they had reached. Go on, anyway, shove the bore down, slush up the emptiness, if such a thing could be brought out in the throb of the suction snake. The operator stood smoking a cigarette. The other machine was working too.
And the men with the cigarettes in their straight lined mouths, the men with the eyes of puff adders, took up their load of machine and tube, their case of liquid melancholy and the slow dark sludge of nameless stuff, and strolled out the door.

September 22, 2006

I read my excerpt from a Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks and Ivan reviewed from the previous day. We then read a poem by Tom Wayman titled, Did I Miss Anything? It was a funny poem about students who missed school and their teachers reaction to being asked if they missed anything important. After that we dicussed Banned Book Week. A book can be banned or challenged for various reasons, the most common are sexual scenes, profanity, and violence. Some books that have been banned or challenged are: Harry Potter, The Giver, Captain Underpants, Dr. Seuss, Little House in the Parire, Harriet the Spy, and Catcher in the Rye. We discussed reasons why Banned Book Week was important, such as raising awarness of banned books and supporting the books that have been banned, everyone has a right to read what they want. After the power point Ms. Hillestad informed us that we will be reading a few books that have been banned and/or challenged. Yeah!

Review for September 20

Last class. Hmm...well what happened. Quite a bit was completed over the 85 minutes in Ms. Hillestad's 3rd period class. I started the class by sharing my blog; a poem called "Dreams" by Langston Hughes. Then, Dom gave her review (a very well-done review by the way) and we discussed the Walkabout some more and handed in our signed, completed contracts. Then, after Ms. Hillestad handed the students their completely corrected Personal Profiles, their was another round table discussion which concluded the class. Our assignments: the final copy of the personal profile and a completely read "The Stranger" are to be done by monday. Speaking of which, I really need to read that book.

A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks

In time the glowing, cratered moon began its seeming rise from the sea, casting a prism of light across the slowly darkening water, splittling itself into a thousand different parts, each more beautiful then the last. At exactly the same moment, the sun was meeting the horizon in the opposite direction, turning the sky red and orange and yellow, as if heaven above had suddenly opened its gates and let all its beauty escape its holy confines. The ocean turned golden silver as the shifting colors reflected off it, waters rippling and sparkling with the changing light, the vision glorious, almost like the beginning of time. The sun contuined to lower itself, casting its glow as far as the eye could see, before finally, slowly, vanishing beneath the waves. The moon contuined its slow drift upward, shimmering as it turned a thousand different shades of yellow, each paler then the last, before finally becoming the color of the stars.

the 15th of September

...and the rain continued to pour. i read an excerpt from snow falling on cedars, and aline followed up with her review of the day. ms. hillestad passed out grade sheets so we could keep track of of our scores and know exactly what we have. next, she gave us our walkabout contracts. make sure you have a sponsor! then, its circle time. we discuss the stranger and agree that it is an easy read compared to crime and punishment. our assignment: research camus and existentialism. =]

Dreams by Langston Hughes

Dreams

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren fieldFrozen with snow.
Langston Hughes

Snow Falling on Cedars, David Guterson

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson


Her father was gone, arrested by the FBI for keeping dynamite in his shed; there was talk going around that before too long everyone with a Japanese face on San Piedro would be sent away until the war was done; she had a hakujin boyfriend she could see only in secret, who in a few short months was sure to be drafted and sent to kill the people of her blood. And now, on top of these insoluble things, her mother had only hours before probed into the pit of her soul and discovered her deep uncertainty. Her mother seemed to know about the gulf that separated how she lived from what she was. And what was she anyway? She was of this place and she was not of this place, and though she might desire to be an American it was clear, as her mother said, that she had the face of America's enemy and would always have such a face. She would never feel at home here among the hakujin, and at the same time she loved the woods and fields of home as dearly as anyone could. She had one foot in her parents home, and from there it was not far at all to the Japan they had left behind years before. She could feel how this country far across the ocean pulled on her and lived inside her despite her wishes to the contrary; it was something she could not deny.
It occurred to her now that she might never know herself, that perhaps no one ever does, that such a thing might not be possible. And she thought she understood what she had long sought to understand, that she concealed her love for Ishmael Chambers not because she was Japanese in her heart but because she could not in truth profess to the world that what she felt for him was love at all.
She felt a sickenss overtake her.

the day was sept 13, 2006

... and i, aline, began the class with a blog entry from Catch-22. After a few jumbles of here and there, I handed over the attention to Mrs. Hillestad. We talked about college: searching for colleges, what colleges may require, dealing with large population, small population, etc... On that day, our 1st draft personal profile were due. We traded profiles, and edited each other's profiles. We learned about the aesthetics of a form-- how to balance the compostion of words, to use space wisely, change fonts to reveal the importance of a word, etc.... Then, we made a circle of desks, and discussed openly about our summer books, Jane Eyre and Crime and Punishment. All I heard was a noise of reverant opinions clashing against each other... Bell rings, and we come back after lunch to pick up the book, The Stranger... By next class, we should have part 1 read.

Catch-22 .... by: Joseph Heller

"Keep away, keep away," Hungry Joe screamed. "I said keep away, keep away, you goddam stinking lousy son of a bitch."

"At least we found out what he dreams about," Dunbar observed wryly. "He dreams about goddam stinking lousy sons of bitches."

Late that night Hungry Joe dreamed that Huple's cat was sleeping on his face, suffocating him, and when he woke up, Huple's cat was sleeping on his face. His agony was terrifying, the piercing, unearthly howl with which he split the moonlit dark vibrating in its own impact for seconds afterward like a devastating shock. A numbing silence followed, and then a riotous din rose from inside his tent.

Yossarian was among the first one there. When he burst through the entrance, Hungry Joe had his gun out and was struggling to wrench his arm free from Huple to shoot the cat, who kept spitting and feinting at him ferociously to distract him from shooting Huple. Both humans were in their GI underwear. The unfrosted light bulb overhead was swinging crazily on its loose wire, and the jumbled black shadows kept swirling and bobbing chaotically, so that the entire tent seemed to be reeling. Yossarian reached out instinctively for balance and then launched himself forward in a prodigious dive that crushed the three combatants to the ground beneath him. He emerged from the meleee with the scruff of a neck in each hand-- Hungry Joe's neck and the cat's. Hungry Joie and the cat glared at each other savagely. The cat spat viciously at Hungry Joe, and Hungry Joe tried to hit it with a haymaker.

"A fair fight," Yossarian decreed, and all the other who had come running to the uproar in horror began cheering ecstatically in a tremendous overflow of relief. "We'll have a fair fight," he explained officially to Hungry Joe and the cat after he had carried them both outside, still holding them apart by the scruffs of their necks. "Fists, fangs and claws. But no guns," he warned Hungry Joe. "And no spitting," he warned the cat sternly. "When I turn you both loose, go. Break clean in the clinches and come back fighting. Go!"

There was a huge, giddy crowd of men who were avid for any diversion, but the cat turned chicken the moment Yossarian released him and fled from Hungry Joe ignominiously like a yellow dog. Hungry Joe was declared the winner. He swaggered away happily with the proud smile of a champion, his shriveled head high and his emaciated chest out. He went back to bed victorious and dreamed again that Huple's cat was sleeping on his face, suffocating him.

Monday Sept. 11th Review

Monday was our first normal block Monday of the year. I did my blog presentation for Going After Cacciato and Meghan did her review from Friday. Then we did our book selling and Aline won her selling of The Life of Pi with over $3,000 in monopoly money and recieved a present from Mrs. Hillestad which was a book. The first drafts of our personal profiles are due Wednesday. Get them done! And continue working on the Walkabout!

Going After Cacciato by Tim O'Brien

"Yes, they were in jungle now. Thick dripping jungle. Club moss fuzzing on the bent branches, hard green bananas dangling from trees that canopied in lush sweeps of green, vaulted forest light in yellow-green and blure-green and olive-green and silver-green. It was jungle. Growth and decay and the smell of chlorophyll and jungle sounds and jungle depth. Soft, humming jungle. Everywhere, greenery deep in greenery. Itching jungle, lost jungle. A botanist's madhouse, Doc said."

friday review

Friday was a half day so class was only twenty-five minutes. Ms. H also was not in class so we had a sub. I read my quality piece of writing from "Beloved" by Toni Morrison, then Megan did the review from the previous class. After that, we all discussed our Walkabouts, personal profiles, and book sells (mainly the Walkabout though.) Before we knew the bell was ringing and class was over.

Beloved by Toni Morrison

Denver thought she understood the connection between her mother and Beloved: Sethe was trying to make up for the handsaw; Beloved was making her pay for it. But there would never be an end to that, and seeing her mother diminshed shamed and infuriated her. Yet she knew Sethe's greatest fear was the same one Denver had in the beginning- that Beloved might leave. That before Sethe could make her understand what it meant-what it took to drag the teeth of that saw under the little chin; to feel the baby blood pump like oil in her hands; to hold her face so her head would stay on; to squeeze her so she could absorb, still, the death spasms that shot through that adored body, plump and sweet with life- Beloved might leave. Leave before Sethe could make her realize that worse than that- far worse- was what Baby Suggs died of, what Ella knew, what Stamp saw and what made Paul D tremble. That anybody white could take your whole self for anything that came to mind. Not just work, kill, or maim you, but dirty you. Dirty you so bad you couldn't like yourself anymore. Dirty you so bad you forgot who you were and couldn't thing it up. And though she and others lived through and got over it, she could never let it happen to her own. The best thing she was, was her children. Whites might dirty her all right, but not her best thing, her beautiful, magical best thing- the part of her that was clean. No undreamable dreams about whether the headless, feetless torso hanging in the tree with a sgn on it was her husband or Paul A; whether the bubbling-hot girls in the colored school fire set by patriots included her daughter; whether a gang of whites invaded her daughter's private parts, soiled her daughter's thighs and threw her daughter out of the wagon. She might have to work the slaughter house yard, but not her daughter.

Review for September 6th, 2006

It was another lovely block day. We posted up the goals we had taken home to finish and then Mrs. Hillestad told us about the Walkabout Project, and gave some ideas as to what to include in our 5 topics. We had some brainstorming time and then took the objective test over Crime & Punishment. You should be working on your personal profile, your book for the book sale and talking to people about your Walkabout. Get crackin'!

A Separate Peace by John Knowles

“We began meeting every night to initiate them. The Charter Members, he and I, had to open every meeting by jumping ourselves. This was the first of the many rules which Finny created without notice during the summer. I hated it. I never got inured to the jumping. At every meeting the limb seemed higher, thinner, the deeper water harder to reach. Every time, when I got myself into position to jump, I felt a flash of disbelief that I was doing anything so perilous. But I always jumped. Otherwise I would have lost face with Phineas, and that would have been unthinkable.”

“Then in the everyday, mediocre tone he used when he was proposing something really outrageous, he added, “Let’s go to the beach.” The beach was hours away by bicycle, forbidden, completely out of all bounds. Going there risked expulsion, destroyed the studying I was going to do for an important test the next morning, blasted the reasonable amount of order I wanted to maintain in my life, and it also involved the kind of long labored bicycle ride I hated. “All right,” I said.

Review for September 5, 2006

During our short period on Tuesday, the class reviewed some student profiles. We discussed being well-rounded readers; to be a well-rounded reader read a little bit of everything. We took time to brainstorm our goals for the first semester, and learned how to set better goals. To further show how to set better goals Ms. Hillestad explained RACE - rewarding, attainable, challenging, explicit- goals. There's an objective Crime and Punishment test tomorrow.

I Know This Much Is True - Wally Lamb

I am not a smart man, particularly, but one day, at long last, I stumbled from the dark woods of my own, and my family's, and my country's past, holding in my hands these truths: that love grows from the rich loam of forgiveness; that mongrels make good dogs; that the evidence of God exists in the roundness of things. This much, at least, I've figured out. I know this much is true.

Friday, September 1

On Friday I started the class with my piece of quality writing from The Memory Keeper's Daughter (which, by the way, I am almost finished reading). The class took the Jane Eyre essay test, and then we discussed personal profiles and the third book assignment. We looked at sample profiles as well as sample posters. The "book sell" is scheduled for September 11.